War Criminals’ Pension Benefits Cut

Germany closed a 47-year-old loophole under which Nazi war criminals have been able to draw pension benefits for injuries sustained during World War II. Lawmakers quashed a 1950 rule that prevented regional authorities from refusing such benefits to German residents. War criminals living abroad had been denied such allowances. The action follows an uproar over allegations made in a television documentary earlier this year that millions of dollars were still being paid annually to German residents convicted of war atrocities. Bonn’s admission that some war criminals may have been receiving the pension benefits provoked fury among Jews and others victimized by the Nazis.